


And if I am to tire of giving and simply take

by Catherines_Collections



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Jack Sparrow has always found great favor with the sea, Multi, Pirate King Elizabeth Swann, Post-At World's End, Their's is an intense quick developing love, Will Turner guides the lost souls of the sea, and taking action is made nearly impossible between them all, but the realization is much slower and even less steady
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 16:18:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11211687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: She steals him in the night.Though stories will argue about it later, about who really stole who: whether the sea stole its King back, or attempted to imprison its captain once more.





	And if I am to tire of giving and simply take

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tigriswolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/gifts).



> Is this cannonly possible? I have no idea. Do I care if it is? No. 
> 
> This started out as a prompt and grew into this. This isn't even the PotC fic I had planned to work on. Jeez. Oh well! For Tigriswolf for her prompt, "I have crossed the horizon to find you" sorry it turned a into monster but I hope you still like it! Enjoy! I own nothing but the title.

  
She steals him in the night.

Though stories will argue about it later, about who really stole who: whether the sea stole its King back, or attempted to imprison its captain once more.

“Hello, love.” Jack murmurs when he wakes to Elizabeth’s foot across his throat. The crew sleeps happily below deck, the rest scattered across the port, and the Pearl feels just as steady as ever beneath her feet. Fog envelops them, and it is only by the grace of pale moonlight that she can see his face.

He’s heavy eyes, slow to focus and dazed, but unworried: he's everything she remembers and it's an odd mix of thrill and dread that fills her, the ability to predict his movements, but being sickened by what she knows they will be.

He swallows and, for a moment, her foot is pushed ever so gently upwards, and slowly his smile comes to greet her alongside the night: just as dark and sure as she remembers. Careless with a dangerous amount of calculation and something dark swimming in his eyes.

“Dare I ask,” he says, and the wind carries his voice like a twisted melody, a strong sound in much too loud company, “what’s brought you to my ship at such a, ah, particular, time?”

Waves rock the boat and the scent of sea envelops everything from the wooden floorboards to the stitches in the cloth of the sails. The scent of sea can drown a man just as good, if not better, than the water itself. It's something they both know well, the power and sheer uncontrollable nature of the sea: how easily it seduces.

“I have a mission,” she says, pulling the sword out from behind her back and positioning it beside her foot on his throat, “and I need a ship.”

Jack laughs beneath her foot, light and breathy, and shaking his head, throat sliding against her blade enough to make a small cut and draw a trickle of blood.

She has half a mind to tell him how nicely the color suits him, how well it blends with the black beneath his eyes and the light hollow of his throat - of how lying beneath her he looks the pirate he has always proven to be: wicked and dangerous and always much more cunning than anyone had ever expected of him - but she holds her tongue, blames the careless and nearly invulnerable feelings the sea always gives her, and tightens her grip on her sword.

Jack laughs. Her smile grows teeth.    
.

They leave at dawn, when the rest of the crew has returned from a night of vices, and in the passing waves lapping at the shore she can still hear Jack’s laugh.

.

As he watches her, as she shouts orders to his crew and attempts to guide his ship, and wonders if she's gone mad with heat. Lost her sanity to the sea, as she already has so many things.

He wonders if the far look in her eyes and sharp bite of her smile are after effects of losing the boy she tried so hard to protect.

It's takes him longer than it should really, to realize that nothing about her actions is completely new: not the dark flickers in her eyes or how she smiles more with teeth. It is simply this: she does not try to hide her vicious nature beneath piles of lace and satin anymore, or bury it beneath corsets and parasails. She accepts it now, the pirate in her blood: embraces it.

She wears danger like a jewel, adorn with the title of King, and smiles, proud.

And something inside of him begins to twist.

.

She knows how clever Jack is, how brilliant he can be - _clever Jack_ , she thinks, still hearing Calypso’s breathy voice between the syllables - but she still does not expect how quickly he figures her out. Or how abruptly he confronts her.

She doesn't expect when he marches towards her on the deck only to grab her wrist and pull her in, words coming out in a twisted snarl, as silence sweeps over the crew.

“You have no idea what you're doing, love.” He says, and it does not take much to figure out what he is referring to. She is no fool, no coward, and so she meets his confrontation head on with a snarl of her own. His grip on her wrist begins to bruise, and his mouth twists up into a sneer.

“Maybe not,” she answers, rising up to meet him, edging their mouths only breaths away before baring her teeth and pushing her wrist so that it rocks against his chest as his grip tightens, “but neither do you.”

He throws her off so quick it's as if she’s burnt him, and maybe, she thinks as he sneers at her once more before retreating further onto the deck, she has.

.

The crew never tells them this, but they all think it and each know it to be true. Their captain and their King, two of the best pirates to ever sail the sea, they’re two bodies: twin smiles, and dangerous eyes. Two sides of the same coin: both too dangerous and clever for their own good. Both too loyal where they shouldn't be, too giving where they should take.

(And oh, what their King and Captain have taken. What they each own unbeknownst to themselves and eachother.)

Makes one wonder, they muse, over bottles of rum and not enough women around to distract.

Makes one wonder indeed.

.

She dreams of Will. Of a soft boy with an open giving heart and a smile bright as the sun. She dreams of the taste of the ash on his tongue, as if the years spent in the forge have branded him: claimed him.

She thinks of sharp blades constructed by careful hands, a gentle boy with a gentle soul, and the seeking of love between all the blood shed, and she thinks about those attempting to steal it from her.

Because the boy is _lightlightlight_ : blinding and pure, impossible to block out or dampen, much too good, and in her dreams the world - including she, and really mostly she - devours him whole.

In a way, it is of little surprise when a familiar darkness edges it's way into her dreams, blends with the light - turns light hopeful love to glorious passion, develops soft and gentle into fast and hard, paves way for lust among the love - and smirks its entire way through.

She sleeps, buried in the home of the sea she has carved out - stolen and fought for - for herself, and allows her mind to dream and wonder.

.

She has been staring into the sea for so long that she has nearly forgotten her own name when he joins her. Lays his arms on the banister, and allows his hands to dangle over the edge.

It's a dare, she knows. A challenge of: _come and get me, if you think you can hold me_ to the sea and all its inhabitants.

But, oh, Calypso never would dare.

She thinks a moment longer before lowering her crossed arms and allowing her fingers to stray over the railing. She wonders if she imagines the slight twist of Jack’s lips.

“I could steal your sword,” he says, voice blending with the sounds of gentle waves.

“You could,” she agrees, “but you won't. Not like this. Not now. Not when you know my reasoning, Jack. And you do.”

“Hm,” he says, and then, “but you do keep forgetting one thing, love.”

His words are hushed, and so she turns towards him, watching as he gazed out into the unknown draped in a curtain of mist and fog and lifts his mouth into a troubled half smile.

“I am a pirate.”

Her eyes sharpen instantly and she grips the handle of her sword as his mouth dips slightly downwards. Watches as his troubled smile turns wry and sardonic and he begins to shake his head, near in hopeful disbelief.

“Maybe so,” she allows, turning but not yet walking away, “but you aren't quite that good of one.”

His hoarse laughter echoes in her footsteps.

.

Because here's the thing they both know as soon as she steps upon the Pearl once more, holds the sword to his throat and watches as he bleeds. What they don't say to each other ever and never allow the thoughts and feelings to greet the air: nothing can ever keep any of them.

Not when so many other things have claim over each of them. Not the hold previous given, or the treasure bound to be sought.

Not the Pirate King, not the caption of the Dutchman, not the ruler of the sea.

Nothing can ever keep any of them, and they see it in each other.

.

When she finally sees Will again - finally finds him after months at sea, violent and vile arguments with Jack, and _searchingsearchingsearching_ \- it isn’t what either of them had envisioned for a reunion, had planned for, but that is how most of their meetings have often gone.

  
She smiles, all teeth and bruised knuckles and a cut right above her left eye still fresh and bleeding bright red with Jack right behind her - smiling with narrowed eyes and itching hands - and runs into his arms.

The boat rocks beneath her feet, but the rotting wood does not bother her. Not when her feet have grown callous after months of the feeling of sea beneath her feet, waves crashing into the wood of the Pearl - Jack shouting orders behind her and she gazed into the water too black to be considered blue - and wetting her ankles and feet, not when the man she has been dreaming of for so long is finally standing before her.

  
They fall into each other more than anything. Breaths mingling and hands grasping the other so tightly, like they may float away if they were to let go, and they just may.

  
“You aren’t supposed to be here.” Will says, when realization strikes like cold water being poured over the head and fear is like a stab to the gut. Undead pirates strangled and held captive by the sea surface in his mind and it feels like being stabbed all over again when he finally comes back to himself.

“It’s ten years. Ten years, that’s the- that’s the deal-” and he wants to say more but Elizabeth’s eyes are sparkling and her smile is just as blinding and sharp as it has always been but there is an edge to it now that he can’t exactly place but-  
  
“Oh, my good lad,” Jack starts and it startles both of them enough that they jump, rock with the rhythm of the boat for a change instead if making it follow them, and Jack’s grin grows wider and eyes a tinge sadder, “you must know your woman by now. She isn't exactly the waiting type.”

  
Jack lifts a finger and points to the edge of her blouse. And it isn’t noticeable at first, the layers of dark clothing - jackets and shirts piled on top of shirts - mask what lies beneath, but when he sees it - the growing spot of red beneath her shirt, the blood of his beloved dripping onto the deck - he feels as cold as the sea pumping through his veins.

“You-” he begins, hands tearing frantically at the material hiding the wound and attempting to cover and mend what he can. But it’s futile, red falls in clots and her smile and eyes are still just as sharp but her body begins to sway out of accordance with the boat, and in the corner of his eye he can see Jack’s lips forming a thin line - eyes set in a form of resigned mourning.

  
It’s silent but for the wind around them. The crew still sleeps beneath the deck, but the world feels like it has stopped as the women he loves bleeds out before him.

  
“You can’t,” Will whispers and it’s a desperate, hoarse, plea but it’s too late. They all know it.  
  
“But I have.” She whispers and she’s smiling and Jack’s eyes are watching and Will still feels as though he cannot breath.

  
“Ten years,” she says, capturing his jaw and bringing his lips down to meet hers - he can taste the salt on them, taste where the ocean has gotten to her first, soaked into her skin and twisted into her hair, and marked her as its own. It will always be first to her, ever since the very first time the word pirate was whispered around a small blonde girl whose eyes lit up in curiosity and never really stopped, and only grew from there. The sea has claimed her, and now in one more way - and when they part she stares up at him with dark eyes and blood on her lips, “is much too long to for a pirate to wait.”

  
Jack begins to laugh, hard and cold and more desperate than he would ever dare to admit, and Will can’t bring himself to look away from blood stained lips and eyes reflecting the sea.

 

.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and Kudos much appreciated! I'm rhymesofblue on tumblr if you want to stop by.


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